Today's Stichomancy for Neil Gaiman

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf:

the villa at midday on Tuesday.

Terence came out to receive them, and St. John was struck by the fact that he had grown perceptibly thinner in the interval; he was white too; his eyes looked strange. But the curt speech and the sulky masterful manner of Dr. Lesage impressed them both favourably, although at the same time it was obvious that he was very much annoyed at the whole affair. Coming downstairs he gave his directions emphatically, but it never occurred to him to give an opinion either because of the presence of Rodriguez who was now obsequious as well as malicious, or because he took it for granted that they knew already what was to be known.

"Of course," he said with a shrug of his shoulders, when Terence

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Several Works by Edgar Allan Poe:

The Masque of the Red Death

by Edgar Allan Poe

October, 1997 [Etext #1064]*

The Masque of the Red Death

The "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal--the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men.

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte:

'Yes, they are occupied with more agreeable company.'

'Then don't trouble yourself to overtake them.' I slackened my pace; but next moment regretted having done so: my companion did not speak; and I had nothing in the world to say, and feared he might be in the same predicament. At length, however, he broke the pause by asking, with a certain quiet abruptness peculiar to himself, if I liked flowers.

'Yes; very much,' I answered, 'wild-flowers especially.'

'I like wild-flowers,' said he; 'others I don't care about, because I have no particular associations connected with them - except one or two. What are your favourite flowers?'

Agnes Grey

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Poems by Bronte Sisters:

And rose-trees wet with dew.

I sat in silent musing; The soft wind waved my hair; It told me heaven was glorious, And sleeping earth was fair.

I needed not its breathing To bring such thoughts to me; But still it whispered lowly, How dark the woods will be!

"The thick leaves in my murmur Are rustling like a dream,